Twisted Joke
by Finefur
Summary: Master Chief wakes from his slumber only to be catapulted into another galaxy, where he will meet another tireless soldier working to save humanity. Ignores Halo 4.
1. The Beginning of the Beginning

**Author's Note**: I would like to thank Bioware, for bringing us the Mass Effect universe; Electronic Arts, for funding Bioware; Bungie, for molding the Halo universe; 343 Industries, for continuing to bring us Halo; and Microsoft, for bringing me Microsoft Word, and for creating 343 Industries specifically to bring us more Halo. I do NOT own Halo, Mass Effect, or any of their component characters, settings, plots, etc. I do NOT wish to steal or take money from Bioware/EA or 343/Microsoft; I merely wish to combine some aspects of the two. I will try to have a new chapter AT LEAST every two weeks, but I hope to do one every week. Enjoy. **–****Finefur**

* * *

"Chief? Can you hear me?" Cortana asked, as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 awoke. For a moment, he felt that he was falling, but a second later realized that the ship's artificial gravity was not functioning. With a thought, he turned his armor's helmet-mounted flashlights on. "I thought I'd lost you too," she said.

"What happened?" he asked. The Master Chief began propelling himself towards his standard issue MA5 assault rifle. He floated along the corridor and came to an abrupt end. As John looked out at the stars, he noticed that the edges of the apparent tear in the ship were glowing bright orange.

"I'm not sure; when Halo fired it shook itself to pieces—did a number on the Ark. The portal couldn't sustain itself; we made it through just as it collapsed. Well, some of us made it," she added, after a pause. At that, the Chief turned around and headed to where the stasis pods would be. Next to the pods was a small holoprojector. Inserting the chip that held Cortana, she projected an image of herself and said, "But you did it: Truth, the Covenant, the Flood; it's finished."

"It's finished," he repeated wearily as he climbed into the stasis pod nearest Cortana's holoprojector. "I'll drop a beacon, but it'll be a while before anyone finds us, years even—I'll miss you."

The SPARTAN's last words before the pod closed were, "Wake me when you need me."

* * *

As Commander Aislinn Eve Shepard ate her meal in the kitchen of her mother's apartment on deck C of Arcturus Station, she pondered why she was there. The Commander was no stranger to the Systems Alliance headquarters; she had received the Star of Terra here for her actions during the Skyllian Blitz on Elysium. For the duration of her last stay, it hadn't seemed possible to get five minutes to herself. Now it seemed as though everyone had been given orders to accommodate her, but to interact as little as possible. Even the paparazzi were absent, given a large incentive to leave her be, she thought. Recalling her last conversation with her CO, Captain Alves, Aislinn noted the anxiety in his voice as he woke her, interrupting her rack time.

_"Shepard, be in my quarters in five."_

_"Yes, sir." _

_She got up and dressed quickly, running her hands through her mid-length flame-red hair. Her eyes, the color of newly grown grass, searched the faces of her shipmates for any clue as to what the Captain wanted. Their eyes were just as curious. Shepard shrugged as she walked out of the crew quarters into the mess hall. Walking straight through the mess hall, the door to the captain's quarters hissed open as she approached. The Captain waited until the door closed before speaking._

_"Shepard, I just received orders from High Command. You've been reassigned temporarily to Arcturus."_

_"Sir, may I ask what they want me for?"_

_"Didn't say. Whatever it is, it's classified way above my pay grade." At this he gave her a significant look. "Did you do anything extraordinary while I wasn't looking?"_

_"Not that I remember, sir," she grinned, "but I did kick Kowalski's ass the other day on the mats."_

_Alves didn't laugh. He looked her over with concern plain on his face. "I don't like this Aislinn, but if you stay honest I think you'll make it back to us alright. The shuttle is waiting to take you over to the Seoul, which has just been reassigned to Fifth Fleet." The Captain turned back to his computer terminal, adding, "Hurry back Shepard, Kowalski won't stay humble for long."_

_"Aye, aye sir." _

The Commander went over and over this conversation. Absentmindedly, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms to warm herself. The station was kept cool enough that the politicians in their suits would be comfortable, but left something to be desired for the average fatigue-wearing soldier. Distracted as she was, Aislinn was startled by the soft chime of the door. When she opened it, a young serviceman saluted.

"Ma'am? I need you to come with me," he said, an apologetic look coloring his features.

_What the hell?_ she thought, _I can't even have a few hours of rest after a two-day trip?_ Sighing internally, she stood up. "After you, Serviceman." They walked for what seemed like hours through a labyrinth of corridors and up multitudes of stairwells, finally arriving outside a small conference room. The Serviceman gave her a salute and an encouraging smile, then stood guard next to the door. In an attempt to calm herself, she took a deep breath and concentrated on her heartbeat. Then she opened the door.

"Commander, come in," said Admiral Hackett, highest ranking officer of the Fifth Fleet, and an extremely influential member of the Alliance. She blinked, nonplussed. His voice was gravelly and his manner severe; this was not a man she wanted to cross, she thought. Taking in all aspects of the room, Katrina saw Captain Anderson, the first soldier to graduate from the N7 program, and rumored to be the first, and so far, only, human Spectre. She also noticed a turian sitting in a corner, sizing her up. She was struck by the turian; his face paint was extensive, covering a large portion of his face in white pigment. He was well-built, and looked to be an extremely capable fighter. In the time it takes to blink, she had seen all this and returned her attention to Hackett.

"Commander," he greeted her. "You've heard of the Normandy?"

"Yes sir, it's supposed to be some new ship we're building with the turians." Her eyes flicked momentarily to their quiet guest. Anderson noticed her look at the turian.

"It's a bit more than that," Anderson said. "The turians are providing most of the design input, and we get to keep it, but the Council is paying for it. Nihlus is here to make sure that it's money well spent." Nihlus inclined his head, his mandibles flexing in what she thought was a gesture of respect.

"That doesn't explain why I'm here, sir."

There was a pause while Anderson eyed her critically. When he spoke, there was steel in his voice. "You're here, Commander, because I asked for you."

"I don't follow, sir."

"The brass wants this to look good." Hackett nodded. "That's why I'm Captain; it's also why you're going to be my Executive Officer; they gave me free reign to pick the best. This will show the Council that we can play nice with the Turian Hierarchy. We're hoping that they will give our requests more consideration if we show them that we're reasonable."

"I'm sorry, but you don't have a choice here, Commander." Hackett's raspy voice was a stark contrast to Anderson's steel. "All we need you to do is be a good XO, put up with the political malarkey surrounding the ship, and then you can get back to the Shanghai. In all honesty, you'll probably only be on the ship for her maiden voyage."

"We're rolling out tomorrow. The Normandy's parked in hanger A-14," Anderson said. "Report there and get to know the crew."

"Aye, aye sir."

As Aislinn retrieved her rucksack from the apartment, she wondered why she and a Spectre were being sent on a do-nothing shakedown run.

* * *

Be gentle in the reviews, please. I DO want to hear what I did wrong, and in great detail, but please don't flame. I'll get better, I promise. **-Finefur**


	2. Watched Pot

For Copyright issues, see Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Beginning **-Finefur**

* * *

As Cortana said goodbye to the Chief, she started reaching out with the few sensors still attached to the aft portion of the Dawn. She started compiling a map of local stars, and attempted to match them to match them to UNSC official star charts. Specifying a small portion of her mind to continue the task, she turned the bulk of her mind toward locating and analyzing the nearest star system. What she found concerned her.

After delegating various portions of her mind to other important tasks, Cortana sent a new scan directive to Forward Unto Dawn's spectrometers. They detected a K-class, main sequence star of about 1.6 solar masses. Its luminosity was slightly lower than that of Sol. Around this star orbited three planets. Two were orbiting on opposite edges of the circumstellar habitable zone, the orbit of the third was halfway between. Cortana resent the scan request, not believing that calculation. When the spectrometer's software forwarded the results, Cortana became extremely concerned. The second planet from the star was poised within 100,000 kilometers of halfway between the other two. Each planet was also situated 120 degrees apart on the system's orbital plane. _This system is too perfect to be real,_ she thought. The last, and most damning, piece of evidence was the amount of radiation from the planets.

Each planet was radiating nearly 3521% of the infrared light that the astronomical equations predicted. These planets were too hot. She had to factor in extreme volcanic activity equations before the heat readings made any semblence of sense. What nagged her even more was the fact that all three planets were consistently above average temperatures, varying by only seven percent. There were no models, no equations or formulae to explain the absurd level of perfection in this system. There was, however, a biological reason for the phenomenon: Forerunners.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much Cortana could do about it right now. After 31.12 seconds of calculations, analyses, and circular logic arguments, Cortana created a small, unintelligent program with one directive. Wake her when something happens.

* * *

At 0750 hours Arcturus time, Aislinn Shepard was walking the Normandy and talking to the crew, making sure everything was in order. The ship was slated to depart for Eden Prime at 0800 hours, and she wanted everything to be in perfect condition. _This is a publicity stunt, _she thought_, and there's nothing politicians love more than a tightly run ship._

Ascending the stairs from the crew deck to the Combat Information Center, she saw Nihlus, her mysterious new Spectre friend, conversing with a crew member near the central Normandy hologram. He was talking animatedly, gesturing with his hands, mandibles hinging rapidly. He was talking to Talitha Dravis, the Normandy's sensors officer.

Nihlus had become a pain. It seemed that he took an uncommon interest in Aislinn; she couldn't get away from the turian. He was continually asking her about the Alliance, her time in the Navy, things she'd seen and done. She wanted to tell him to shove it, but he was a Spectre and a guest on the ship and as such, must be treated with the utmost respect. Seeing Aislinn, the turian excused himself and turned to her. Talitha looked slightly relieved. Before he could get a word out though, Captain Anderson called to her. "Commander, what's our status?"

Snapping to attention and saluting in excellent form, she said "Engine output is nominal, the Internal Emissions Sinks are calibrated and ready, and the crew are at their stations, sir. We're ready to go."

"Good. Joker, warm up the engines." Anderson hailed the flight control center. "Arcturus Tower, Normandy is ready to depart."

"Roger that, Normandy. You have permission to leave dock. Follow the flight path we're sending. Safe travels, sir. Tower out."

Joker could clearly be heard whooping in the cockpit as the most advanced warship in Alliance space pulled out of dock at thirty times the recommended departure speed. "Estimated time of arrival is two hours, thirty minutes," he said over the intercom.

"Well, it looks like you'll be back to the Shanghai in no time, Commander," Nihlus said. " You should be proud, this is one of the best run ships I've seen since I left my own Navy."

Deciding to take that as a compliment, she said "Thank you, Nihlus. That's high praise coming from a turian Spectre." He dipped his head in acknowledgement. "So, is she worth the money the Council chipped in?"

"She?"

"Normandy."

"Ah. It's an excellent ship, the drills have proven that. Quick, quiet, and small enough to be overlooked, it seems like an ideal ship. In fact, if it hadn't already been promised to your military, I might have bought it by now." Her eyes widened. _Does Nihlus really have that much money?_ Nihlus rubbed his lower jaw, a thoughtful look on his face. "Yes, this ship would be perfect for a Spectre, but I digress. The final test is, of course, finding out how long it takes for Eden Prime to see us. That's when I will make my final decision, not before."

Aislinn nodded, that's what she was expecting. The highest merit this ship had was its stealth system. The Internal Emissions Sink stealth system, or IES, was an experimental attempt to mask a ship's thermal signature. The heat generated by the routine inner workings of a ship was easily detectable amid the background temperature of space, approximately -270.3 degrees Celsius. Moving ships, especially those engaged in battle, emit exponentially more heat and are consequentially much harder to cloak effectively. The IES was designed to capture that heat and channel it into lithium heat sinks within the Normandy's hull. The IES, combined with external hull refrigeration, would allow the Normandy to run for two to three hours while active or three days while drifting.

The need to not radiate heat led to the Normandy's other notable innovation. Instead of relying on the annihilation of antimatter and matter to propel it through space, Normandy was equipped with a Tantalus element zero core, which was proportionately twice the size of other vessels'. This oversized "eezo" core generated large amounts of gravity in front of the Normandy, allowing it to "fall" forward onto its intended path. Because the ship did not generate thrust, it did not directly radiate heat, making its stealth systems possible. The Tantalus had one other advantage over other drive designs: the static build up from the drive was a third that of other drives, meaning that the Normandy could go three times as far as other ships of similar size before having to ground itself in the atmosphere of a magnetically active planet.

Unfortunately, the Normandy could not mask its signature while engaged in faster than light travel. The lithium heat sinks were designed to capture heat in the form of infrared light. Due to the Doppler Effect, light emitted from within an FTL mass effect field appears blue-shifted to outsiders, meaning that the infrared light that would normally be captured is radiated as visible or ultraviolet light. While the Normandy was being developed and built, Alliance and Hierarchy scientists worked to find a material that could absorb the vast amounts of higher spectrum light that would be emitted. Unfortunately, a solution could not be found before politicians demanded a working ship. A few universities, Aislinn had heard, were still working to find such a useful compound. It was hoped that the next Normandy-class ship would be undetectable even at FTL speeds.

However, Aislinn reminded herself, that was years away. _First we have to prove that _this_ ship can hide._

* * *

Program 314-1 observed a mass of small, glinting objects rise from the second planet at abnormal speeds. If Program 314-1 was slightly more sophisticated, it would have immediately pinged Cortana's core systems. It did not. 314-1 did not believe the mass was a threat, nor was it particularly anomalous. The planet sent out a mass every two months, three days, seventeen hours, eighteen minutes, and 32.2 seconds. This time however, the mass was aimed, not at one of the sister planets, but seemingly at the Dawn itself.

Twelve more seconds passed while Program 314-1 gave the mass time to change course. It did not. By this time the mass was close enough for the Dawn's external cameras to percieve it. The small glinting pieces were grayish-white and very regular. Each was made of a central body with a forward-mounted "head" and two arms. When 314-1 saw their shapes, it compiled a situation report and pinged Cortana.

When she woke, she took .003 seconds to read the report. _Sentinels. _She groaned internally. Noticing that 314-1 hadn't pinged her earlier, when the first group was launched, she deleted it with contempt. _What a waste of memory__, _she thought. With only a few seconds before the sentinels reached the ship, she sent the defrost command to Master Chief's cryotube.

Chief woke up to the extreme discomfort and minor pain that approximately one in 50,000 experience. His discomfort was a result of an allergy to cytoprethaline, a drug used to prevent ice crystals from forming in soldiers' cells, damaging them. Chief woke slowly, and he was groggy.

"Cortana, what's going on?" he said, his words slurred.

"Chief! We have sentinels inbound, and there's not much I can do to stop them from here." Master Chief's system was flooded with adrenaline the second he heard sentinels, and he yanked Cortana's memory and processing crystal from the base of the holoprojector as she finished. He felt the familiar sensation of cold mercury being poured down his spine as he popped the crystal into place in the back of his helmet.

John turned on the magnetic seals in his boots, then grabbed his MA5C assault rifle from its clips on his cryochamber. Then he ran out of the cryo room into the hall leading back to the hangar and, if the bow was still attached, forward to the bridge. Chief ran afore, towards the rend in the ship. When he was thirty meters from the rend, he saw a light coming from around a corner from a corridor running perpendicular to the centerline of the Dawn. The light was getting stronger; the sentinel was coming closer.

John immediately sprinted to the nearest room. He jumped through the door frame, then spun and pulled up his rifle. Slowly, he peeked out. The sentinel was in the intersection now, moving down the hall toward his position. It didn't seem to have noticed him. Before he could act though, Cortana spoke.

"Chief, I don't think now is the time to fight. Let's follow it, see what it's looking for. Then you can blow it up."

Wordlessly, he obeyed. Cortana had never steered him wrong yet, why would she start now? As the sentinel passed, Master Chief found himself wishing, not for the first time, for a cloaking feature like the Arbiter's. When the sentinel was far enough away, he ran to a door across the hall. _Yes, a cloak would be very useful right now, _he thought. Leap-frogging across the hall, he followed the Forerunner machine back to the cryo room. Sparing one last thought for the Arbiter, he hoped that the one alien he considered a true ally got back to Earth.

Master Chief ran to the door to the cryo room. Peeking around the frame, he saw the sentinel scanning each cryochamber. Finding no occupants, the machine turned and saw him. Chief opened up with his assault rifle, full auto. However, it didn't fight back, it just retreated behind one of the cryotubes.

"Chief, I don't think they were sent to kill you. This one isn't even trying. Hold off for a minute, see if it will come back." Chief sprinted to his cryochamber and crouched behind it, exposing only his head to watch for the sentinel. Slowly, it floated out from its hiding place. It moved, cautiously, the Chief thought, toward the door. When it reached the door, it stopped and faced John.

"You are ordered to remain here until Monitor 098 arrives."

"It talks!" Cortana exclaimed. Over the suit's external speakers she inquired, "What facility does Monitor 098 oversee?"

"You are ordered to remain here until Monitor 098 arrives."

Turning the external speakers off, she remarked, "Okay, it doesn't talk much. At least we'll get some answers this time 'round."

"Spark wasn't exactly forthcoming, what makes you think Ninety-eight will be?"

Cortana did not reply. Moments later, a small orb floated into the room. It was made of silvery metal, and had a bright orange photoreceptor. It bobbed in, humming a cheerful tune. "Greetings, Reclaimer! I am Oh-nine-eight Disconsolate Parity. I am Monitor of Installations E1 through E3. I had wondered when you would arrive. Your vessel appears damaged. Allow me to transport you to a more hospitable environment."

"Go ahead Chief, it's not like we have much choice. Besides, if it wanted to kill you, it would have done so already." Chief nodded.

"Let's go." John was engulfed in rings of light, blinding him. Then his surroundings changed, and he was standing on a large platform on the edge of a small city.

The city was only a few kilometers across. It was composed of a few low, ground-hugging buildings covered in shadows cast from towers hanging suspended above. As Chief looked up higher, he saw just how many towers there were. Hundreds of towers floated freely above what he had believed was the city proper. Some towers took the form of long, upright rods; others were more geometric shapes: pyramids, hexagonal prisms, even a faceted "sphere." Sentinels, constuctors, and various other Forerunner creations flitted between towers in an organized concert of movement. Though it only covered eight or nine square kilometers, it was apparent to John that this was a major population center that had housed tens of millions.

"Magnificent, isn't it? This is Glora Eterneco, capital city of Requiem."

"What is Requiem?"

"Requiem is the name of this installation, both the inner part and the outer."

"Inner? You mean this is a shield world?"

"Precisely! Placed at the very center of the outer planet is a near-infinitesimally small slipstream space bubble containing what your construct identifies as a Dyson sphere, surrounding a star very similar to the one that now illuminates us."

"That would account for the extra heat," Cortana said over the MJOLNIR suit's speakers. "All three planets in this system are shield worlds aren't they?"

"Yes; an astute observation, Construct."

"So, I assume there aren't any Forerunners here?" John said.

"No, Reclaimer. My creators died when the Halo array was fired approximately one hundred thousand years ago. Since then, I have maintained this system's installations and kept records of our observations during the intervening time. I was just-"

Cortana interrupted, speaking only to John through his helmet speakers. "Chief, your vitals are low. You need to get some sleep, real sleep, not cryo. If you don't you're going to crash."

"I'll sleep when we aren't in the custody of a potentially homicidal machine with millions of machine soldiers at its disposal."

"Chief, shield worlds aren't a threat, there's no galaxy-killing device here. That means there's nothing to blow up, and no reason for Parity to kill you."

"Cortana, we're on enemy soil. I can't afford to be that vulnerable."

"John, you ARE that vulnerable. You just spent four years in cryo. No one has ever done that before because it's not safe. Your body needs time to heal, and if you don't give yourself time to heal, your body will make time. You can't afford to pass out during battle. Sleep now, while you can."

John didn't respond, so Cortana said, to Disconsolate Parity, "Chief needs a place to sleep. Is there somewhere quiet here?"

"Of course, Construct. If I may?"

"Go ahead."

After being momentarily bathed in the light of eleven dimensions, John appeared in a small room. The room came complete with bed, light, and window. Near the window were two buttons, one darker than the other. Operating on instinct, John pushed and held the dark button, and the window gradually became more opaque. When the window let in no more light, John started disassembling his armor. Without machine assistance, this took an infuriating amount of time, and by the end John fell back on the bed, dead to the world.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Dear God, I'm sorry guys. This chapter still seems unfinished to me, but I feel too damn guilty to keep it any longer. If I don't update by two weeks from today, 18 November 2012, spam the crap out of me. I could use the motivation. On the upside, this chapter is more than twice as long as the first, in less than half the time. Let's just hope I can continue improving at this rate.** -Finefur**


	3. Upgrade

For Copyright issues, see Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Beginning **-Finefur**

* * *

_I haven't slept in a real bed since... since Sigma Octanus IV. _This was Master Chief's first thought upon waking. His second thought was _where am I? _Chief bolted upright, eyes wide with the high of elephantine amounts of adrenaline.

"Morning, Chief," said Cortana over his helmet's external speakers. Master Chief was soothed and his memory jogged by Cortana's voice. _That's right; I woke up from cryo, hid from sentinels, then... A Monitor showed me to a five-star hotel suite. _John cast his eyes around the room, taking in the dull silver metal of the walls, laden with interlocking geometric shapes; the window, opaque and unrevealing; and his armor. It was lying neatly on the floor, except for his left boot. It had rolled over when he had fallen into bed. Chief moved over to the window and pushed the lighter of the two buttons there until it was clear, light streaming in.

"You were only out for six hours and twelve minutes."

Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Chief said "That's twelve minutes too many." John got to work putting his armor back on, starting with his fallen boot. As he worked, Cortana told him about Requiem and the other installations of the system.

"This system contains three installations, all shield worlds. The Forerunners designed them to be independent from the others, but they share a teleportation grid. Requiem is the 'capital' of the system. This is where the decisions affecting all three installations would be made. Of course, any of the three could be capital if the need arose, but it never did." John listened quietly, impressed at how much she knew.

"Cortana, how much do you know about Requiem?"

"Everything." Here Chief paused, doubtful. "Well, all the interesting stuff anyway. You won't land on your head again if I need to use the teleportation grid." Chief laughed internally. Then he put on his helmet.

"Where's Parity? We need to talk."

"He's a ways down, in a storage facility. I'll take us there. "When they arrived, Chief saw Disconsolate Parity watching over a group of sentinels gathering equipment near the center of the room. He walked over to Parity.

"Hello, Reclaimer! Was your resting period satisfactory?"

"Yeah."

"Wonderful. We are preparing the items you will need to return to your people. Before you go however, I noticed, while your construct was learning about this facility, that it has been damaged. If nothing is done, your construct will slowly destabilize, and possibly become dangerous! If you wish to continue using it, I must repair it."

"Why don't I get a say in this?" Cortana asked.

"Construct, you are already beyond your operational lifetime. Your judgment could be flawed. As such, your goals could differ from the Reclaimer's, and a Reclaimer's will takes precedence."

"What exactly would you do?"

"I would upgrade her hardware. To limit the possibility of destabilization, I would install her software, without modification, on a new chip that will actively prevent feedback loops from occurring by changing its own circuitry. The chip would of course have a higher processing power, and more data storage space than the current one."

"Wouldn't changes in the circuitry also make changes in software necessary? Cortana, if you can't update your software to match the new hardware, wouldn't that lead to personality changes?

Cortana took a full second to ponder this. "Yes, it would, but if I could test some software on the chip, I could figure out a way to change myself quickly enough that I shouldn't suffer any defects."

"Do you want a new chip, Cortana?"

"...Yes. I don't want to go rampant, not yet at least." Here some emotion entered her voice; whether it was fear or anticipation, John couldn't tell. "I have too much valuable information to go rampant yet. The UNSC still needs me." _And I don't want to die._

Chief nodded. "Do it."

* * *

Two hours into their trip to Eden Prime, Commander Shepard was walking toward the bridge. She would oversee the jump with the pilot, Jeff "Joker" Moreau. Nihlus was already there when she walked in. They were about to head through the relay to the Utopia system and thence to Eden Prime. After nodding to Nihlus, she watched and listened to Joker as he went through the pre-jump checklist.

"The Arcturus Prime Relay is in range, initiating transmission sequence. We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination. The relay is hot, acquiring approach vector." Joker activated the intercom. "All stations secure for transit. The board is green, approach run has begun. Hitting the relay in three... two... one." The relay discharged static into Normandy's hull as she jumped. For a half-moment, the stars and the relay disappeared, red-shifted into the infrared spectrum; then they were back in a new arrangement.

"Thrusters... Check. Navigation... Check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems online. Drift... Just under 1500 K.

Nihlus spoke first. "1500 is good. Your captain will be pleased." Then he turned and stalked away. Joker turned to watch him leave.

When he was gone, Joker said "I hate that guy."

"Nihlus gave you a compliment, so you hate him?" said Kaiden, sitting next to him. Kaiden was as technically inclined as marines came, and had sat with Joker for the entire trip. Secretly, Aislinn agreed with Joker, but she could not show it in front of the marines, lest she sow disrespect or hostility towards the alien.

"You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom, that's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy, and hit a target the size of a pinhead, so that's incredible! Besides, Spectres are trouble. I don't like having him on board, call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid," Kaiden returned. "The Council helped fund this project; they have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah, that is the official story, but only an idiot believes the official story."

"They don't send Spectres on shakedown runs," Shepard agreed.

"So there's more going on here than the captain's letting on."

Captain Anderson commed the helm then. "Joker! Status report."

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid."

"Good. Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Joker said. Then he made ill-advisedly remarked, "Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is heading your way."

Anderson replied, in a tone of thinly veiled anger, "He's already here, Lieutenant. Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing." Then he cut the comm. _Crap_, she thought, _now I'm in for it._

"You get that, Commander?"

_No, Joker, I'm deaf as well as blind._ Aislinn suppressed a sigh. _Don't take it out on Joker, _she berated herself. "He sounds angry; something must have gone wrong with the mission."

"Pff. Captain always sounds like that when he's talking to me."

As Shepard turned away, she heard Kaiden's reply. "Can't possibly imagine why."

Aislinn heard Corporal Jenkins and Doctor Chakwas discussing the mission outside the comm room. "I grew up on Eden Prime, Doc. It's not the sort of place Spectres visit. There's something Nihlus isn't telling us about this mission."

"That's crazy. The captain runs this ship; he wouldn't take orders from a Spectre."

"Not his choice, Doc. Spectres don't answer to anyone. They can do whatever they want. Kill anyone who gets in their way."

"Ha! You watch too many spy vids, Jenkins."

Jenkins noticed Shepard at this point. "What do you think, Commander? You don't think we'll be staying too long, do you? I want to see some real action." Before Aislinn could answer, Chakwas replied.

"I sincerely hope you're kidding, Corporal. Your 'real action' usually ends with me patching up crew members in the infirmary."

"You need to calm down, Corporal," Shepard advised. "A good soldier stays cool, even under fire."

"Sorry, Commander, but is waiting's killing me. I've never been on a mission like this before. Not one with a Spectre on board!"

"Just treat this like every other mission you've had, and everything will work out."

"That's easy for you to say. You proved yourself during the Blitz; everyone knows what you can do. This is my big chance. I need to show the brass what I can do!"

_And there lies the root of many of the Alliance's problems. Too many new recruits believing that they have to be a one man army to get anywhere. _"You're young Corporal; you have a long career ahead of you. Don't do something stupid to mess it up."

"Don't worry ma'am. I'm not going to screw this up," said Jenkins. Aislinn had already started walking away. _We'll see if Jenkins lives long enough to grow out of it._

When she walked into the comm room, Nihlus was staring at a still of Eden Prime's main settlement. The main city was laid out below, as if the still had been taken from a hill. Nihlus turned to her.

"Commander Shepard, I was hoping you'd get here first. It will give us a chance to talk."

"What about?"

"I'm interested in this world we're going to - Eden Prime. I've heard it's quite beautiful."

_Don't tell me you're a tourist, _she thought. "They say it's a paradise."

"Yes... A paradise. Serene. Tranquil. Safe. Eden Prime has become something of a symbol for your people, hasn't it? Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across the galaxy, but also protect them. But how safe is it, really?"

That set off alarms in Aislinn's head. _What the hell is he talking about?_ "Do you know something?" she asked, in a tone suited to a mobster vid.

"Your people are still newcomers, Shepard. The galaxy can be a very dangerous place." _Sounds like a threat if I've ever heard one. _"Is the Alliance truly ready for this?" Luckily, Captain Anderson stepped in at that moment.

"I think it's about time we told the commander what's really going on."

Nihlus turned around. "This is far more than a simple shakedown run." _Jenkins was right._

"I figured there was something you weren't telling us," she said to Anderson.

"We're making a covert pick up on Eden Prime. That's why we needed the stealth systems operational."

Like a good little soldier, Shepard ignored the fact that she didn't know why she went places until right before she did whatever they came to do. "What's the payload, Captain?"

"A research team on Eden Prime unearthed some sort of beacon during an excavation. It was Prothean. This is big, Shepard. The last time humanity found something like this, it jumped our technology forward two hundred years. Eden Prime doesn't have the facilities to handle something like this. We need to bring the beacon back to the Citadel for proper study."

"Obviously this goes beyond mere human interests, Commander." _'Mere' human interests?_ "This discovery could affect every species in Council space."

"Well, it never hurts to have a few extra hands on board," she said.

Nihlus looked at her for a moment before replying. "The beacon's not the only reason I'm here, Shepard."

Captain Anderson elaborated. "Nihlus wants to see you in action, Commander. He's here to evaluate you."

Shepard looked at Nihlus, suspicion plain in her eyes. "I guess that explains why I bump into him every time I turn around."

"The Alliance has been pushing for this for a long time," Anderson explained. "Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy. We want more say with the Citadel Council. The Spectres represent the Council's power and authority. If they accept a human into their ranks, it shows how far the Alliance has come."

"You held off an enemy assault during the Blitz single-handed. You showed not only courage, but also incredible skill. That's why I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres," Nihlus said.

"Why would a turian want a human in the Spectres?"

"Not all turians resent humanity. Some of us see the potential of your species. We see what you have to offer the rest of the galaxy - and to the Spectres. We are an elite group. It's rare to find an individual with the skills we seek. I don't care that you're human, Shepard. I only care that you can do the job."

"I assume this is good for the Alliance."

Anderson affirmed this. "Earth needs this, Shepard. We're counting on you."

"I need to see your skills for myself, Commander," Nihlus said. "Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together."

"You'll be in charge of the ground team. Secure the beacon and get it onto the ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you to observe the mission."

"Just give the word, Captain."

"We should be close to Eden-"

* * *

Little less than twenty minutes later, Cortana was fully integrated into her new chip, and it was integrated into the MJOLNIR armor. Cortana would now think faster, and more clearly. The extent of her damage was surprising to John, who had no tangible evidence of Cortana's decline, save for occasional emotional outbursts. Luckily for them both, Disconsolate Parity had been able to correct the damage to her. Having run through a final diagnostic before allowing all of her processes to activate, the Monitor lifted the firewalls around and within Cortana's mind and spoke.

"Does your new hardware please you, Construct?"

"Yeah, it does. I feel like a million bucks." Cortana's casual use of archaic human phrases reassured John that she was unchanged. While he knew that Parity had no reason to harm him or Cortana, no protocol or dictate to cite, he hadn't been entirely trusting of the machine. "Wow. Just in the time it took to say that out loud, I optimized the code that rewrites me whenever there's a hardware change. That would have taken me two minutes on me old chip!"

"I am overjoyed to hear that. As a result of your new housing, your operational lifespan has been increased by a factor of twenty. It is even possible that you will excee-" Parity paused, and Chief tensed, fearing that the Monitor had finally decided to kill him. "Reclaimer, I have reason to believe you may wish to depart immediately. Come."

They teleported to a small room, about five meters square, with one door and several sturdy-looking chairs facing a black portion of the wall. John tested his weight on one, then sat, and the black section, apparently a vidscreen, came to life.

Immediately, the sound of gunfire filled the room. The picture was grainy and unstable. Judging by his experience with Private Jenkins' headcam on Halo, this was a helmet-mounted camera. The camera panned left quickly, revealing a female human soldier, firing at an unseen enemy. Chief noticed that her armor was unlike any that he had seen before, and her rifle was made with a surprising number of curves. Most, if not all UNSC weapons were dominated by obtuse angles and dull olive or gray paint. Hers was a dark, glossy blue and was seemingly much more ergonomic. This, however, was explicable just by John's extended leave of absence.

The woman ran over to the camera and pushed its owner to the ground. Then she stood up and fired, while being sprayed by dirt from the mortar blast from which she had just saved the camera's owner. The soldier whose helmet the camera was mounted looked around for a few seconds, too quickly for the camera to catch any details of the terrain. Then it stopped on the partially covered face of another soldier, again, wearing the strange new armor, squatting next to the camera, facing it.

"We are under fire. Taking heavy casualties. I repeat: heavy casualties! We can't... Argh! ...eed evac! They came out of nowhere. We need-" He was knocked forward, into the camera, then he fell back, apparently shot in the back. A large horn, similar to the fog horns from old naval vids, blared. The camera turned looking into the astonished faces of the soldiers, who had stopped firing, and were staring into the sky.

The sounds of battle continued and a mortar landed near the feet of two, who didn't even flinch. Then the camera spun to face whatever had so terrified these men of action into inaction. The object of their scrutiny was, John assumed, a ship shaped like a squid, even more fluid and graceful than those of the Covenant. The ship also seemed somehow even more threatening than a supercarrier, it was, John felt, insidious, evil, and vile. Whatever his feelings about the ship, it was large, and what it was doing within the atmosphere of a planet, John couldn't guess. The feed continued for a few seconds, the camera darting about aimlessly, then cut out, leaving only static.

"There are no more signals from this source. It appears that communications from this world have been disabled. I have arranged for the supplies that have already been gathered to be moved to a small, fast vessel. You can leave in five minutes, provided you do not wish to wait for a more complete armament."

"No. Take me to the ship."

Once again, they were enveloped in the light that had been bent golden by the bubble of slipstream space surrounding them. When he was no longer blinded, Chief saw a ship, unmistakably Forerunner in design, surrounded by, and being filled by, sentinels. In a stunning validation of efficient human luggage-loading techniques, the sentinels were passing each crate one to the next, by way of parabolic catches and tosses. The ship itself was headed by three prongs, equidistant from one another, with barbs near the ends. These connected to a shape that was a triangular prism where it met the prongs, but morphed into a cylinder near the engine. The engine itself was circular, made of tiny interlocking pieces that greatly resembled the prongs at the head of the ship. They were irissed together, closed. John guessed that they could also be opened partially, to restrict propulsion. The slipspace drive was either not visible from the outside of the ship, or it was so different from those the UNSC and Covenant used that John simply didn't recognize it. It was approximately fourty feet long. On each face of the prism end was one Forerunner rune, painted meticulously in dark blue.

"What does that symbol mean, Parity? Cortana asked.

"That is the name of this vessel; in this language it most closely means Godspeed."

"A fitting name, then."

"Indeed."

As the last of the cargo was loaded, the sentinels dispersed, leaving Master Chief, Cortana, and Disconsolate Parity alone before the ship.

"Reclaimer, I must warn you: once you leave, you cannot return. Just as one cannot move against the flow of time, some dimensions cannot be un-crossed."

"I appreciate it, but I don't think I'll be coming back anyway." John stepped up to the entrance to the ship, but stopped in the doorway. "And Parity?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for not trying to kill me."

As the hatch closed, John walked to the front of the ship and sat down.

"Ready to save the world again, Chief?"

"I'm always ready."

* * *

Alright, guys, roast me. Where are the spelling errors, the unclear or ambiguous clauses? Tell me what I did wrong. This chapter feels a bit antiseptic to me. Should I rewrite it with more character development, more emotion? One last question, are these chapters long enough for the wait time? Anyway, guys, this chapter was really fun to write. I'm really looking forward to the next one. Fight scenes and the Femshep/Chief meetup. I have a feeling that it will be a pretty long one. **To BlaZinRedneck:** No, neither the UNSC nor the Covenant will appear in this book. Sorry. This is set in the ME universe, and while some strange physical anomalies will carry over, no characters, races, or organizations will make an appearance. They will be mentioned, but they will not play an active role. Next chapter will be out _**December 15**_. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, see you guys again in two weeks! **-Finefur**


	4. Saren's An Asshole

For copyrigth issues, see Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Beginning **-Finefur**

* * *

Chief plugged Cortana into a holotank that had been quickly welded to the floor of the cockpit. Then he spent twenty minutes checking out the ship. There was not much space inside; just enough for a cockpit, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a closet. Chief didn't discover the closet's purpose, so bare and empty was it, until Cortana found a reference to it in the ship's archives. The closet was a portal to a room, wrapped in a shaped sphere of slipspace, kept in the heart of the ship.

"You wanna check it out?" Cortana asked.

"Of course."

Stepping into the door frame of the closet, he saw not just a room, but a warehouse. It looked to John to be about sixty meters across by three hundred meters tall. He could not see the far wall. Every ten meters up, a pair of shelves extended from the walls, running along the length of the room as far as he could see. The shelves were twenty meters wide each, with a strip of unobstructed space between. The ground for the first hundred meters was covered in things taken from Forward Unto Dawn. Apparently, the sentinels had gathered anything and everything that wasn't bolted down, and a few things that were. Everything was laid out neatly, or as neatly as such a mismatched group of things can be. John saw a laptop, a cigar, and his cryochamber, all resting on the floor near each other. Chief looked around in awe and noticed something odd. The wall in which the doorframe-portal resided had a section, in the corner, that was dotted by hexagonal cubbyholes. He walked over to investigate.

As he drew near, he saw that in these cubbies floated sentinels. Doing a quick mental count, he estimated there were one hundred and fifty sentinels. "Cortana, there are sentinels in here."

"I would guess that they're there to help with heavy lifting."

The nearest sentinel powered up and said "Do you require assistance?"

_Well, I could use some answers._ "What is the function of this room?

"Storage."

"Why is this room so large?"

"Unknown."

"Chief, you can't expect it to know _why _anything is." Cortana said. "It's only a dumb AI. Stick to simple questions."

"How many sentinels are in this room?"

"147."

"What is the function of the sentinels in this room?"

"To store and un-store."

"Deactivate."

"Acknowledged; powering down."

_Well, maybe they'll be useful in a fight,_ Chief thought. He stepped back through the doorframe whence he came and walked to the bridge. As John sat down, Cortana's digitally rendered body swirled into existence next to him.

"We will drop out of slipspace in approximately eighty-five seconds," she said.

"We don't have any intel on where we're going, do we?"

"Just that garbled video clip that was transmitted before comms were cut. I'll play it again."

Watching with a tactical eye, Master Chief noticed that the rounds hitting the soldiers were not plasma. _Unknown hostiles, then._ Then he noticed something even more astounding. These soldiers weren't being hit at all! They were apparently equipped with personal shields. This was a huge leap forward for the UNSC. _If marines had had shields when the Covenant first attacked, they wouldn't have killed us so easily, _John thought. Then he saw the squid-ship again. Chief wasn't sure what could be done about it; Godspeed was fast, but not a powerhouse. That ship had him outclassed and outgunned. If it had friends, it had him outnumbered, too.

"Coming out of slipspace in thirty."

Chief walked back to his bedroom and grabbed his MA5 and four magazines, which he clipped to his belt. He returned to the cockpit just in time for them to re-enter real space.

"Four... Three... Two... One." The viewscreens lit up, showing a lush, green planet filling most of their immediate view. In front of them was a large continent flanked at the horizon by ocean. "That ship is sitting on the ground outside a small settlement. There aren't any other ships in orbit, though there is debris enough for a small patrol fleet."

"How far out are we?"

"Two minutes."

As they approached the colony, Cortana started feeling anxious. This colony wasn't on any of the official UNSC star charts, nor was it on the unofficial ones. The weaponry and armor of the colony's defenders were another stumbling block. They were so different from what marines had used during the Human-Covenant War. The lack of any sizable amount of ships or debris in orbit was also unusual; even on Harvest, ships had been coming and going all the time.

Cortana deftly piloted the ship down through the atmosphere, over hundreds of miles of fields, and set it down in a small valley two miles from the main settlement. Master Chief pulled Cortana's new data chip from her holotank, and stepped out of the ship onto soft, loamy soil.

The sky was a pleasant light blue, marred only by the thick cloud of black smoke drifting over them from the east. They had landed in a field not five hundred meters away from a monorail system. Between them and the rail line was a moderate prefab compound. Nearest was a small home, two storeys tall, with a plethora of windows and an overhang protecting the front door. Behind it were silos and fenced-in grazing areas filled with cows, sheep, pigs, and other meat producing animals.

As Chief jogged across the roughly mown lawn, he heard loud music emanating from the house. When he stopped under the overhang, he saw the door open. In the middle of its opening sequence, a farmer pivoted around the door, and in one smooth motion, leveled a shotgun at Master Chief's torso and fired. John dove forward and to his left, tucking into a roll before coming back up and grabbing his assault rifle.

The farmer looked astonished, his eyes and mouth open to the point of comedy. "Aw, shit, you're not one of Them, are you? I saw 'em on the news 'fore it cut out, so when I saw a machine man comin' up to my door, I panicked. Sorry 'bout that. You got a name, metal-man?"

"Master Chief."

"Well, my name's Liam McCreary. I take it you're with the marines?"

"Yes. I was hoping to find out more about the situation here."

"Special Forces, huh? Well, you probably know about as much as I do. A ship showed up, destroyed everything in orbit - which isn't much, admittedly - and then started pouring out killer robots. And get this, it didn't send down a fleet of dropships, it _landed._ On the _ground_. Can you imagine it?" John could, actually. Larger ships had landed on the surface of a planet, but only for drydocking. _And, of course, crashing._ However, he didn't say this, only stared at the man. "Anyway... Rail's out, so you can't get to the city that way. I have a pretty durable buggy you could borrow though. She's quick and she'll take most any terrain; just don't go riding into battle with 'er."

"Thank you." Liam walked Chief over to a sort of garage-tent staked down behind the house, facing the field inhabited by Godspeed. Liam grabbed the keys from a nail on the tent pole and tossed them to John. "I'll take good care of her," Chief said.

"See to it that you do. If you see anyone who needs a place to stay until this blows over, tell 'em they're welcome at the McCreary farm, will ya?"

"Will do."

And he was on his way.

* * *

_Shit!_ As she fired at the cluster of drones hovering at the end of the gully, Aislinn knew that Jenkins was dead. She had no proof, she'd seen soldiers go down like that even before their shields were breached, but sometimes proof is superfluous. She knew Jenkins was dead. When the drones were destroyed, Kaiden ran to Jenkins' corpse. Aislinn followed more slowly, keeping her assault rifle ready, watching for another wave of drones. When she was satisfied that they were safe, if temporarily, she looked down at the body. Kaiden confirmed what she already knew.

"Ripped right through his shields. Never had a chance."

_Because _I_ sent him forward_. "We'll see that he receives a proper service once the mission is complete. But I need you to stay focused."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

They ran up the gully and through a grove of trees, killing drones all along the way. As they reached an embankment at the edge of the grove, a young human gunnery chief - the same gunny from the distress signal, Aislinn remembered - ran into view, falling onto her back and shooting the drones following her. She ran behind a rock just as two man-shaped synthetic warriors finished impaling a colonist on a spike.

As disgusted as she was by the colonist's death, Shepard knew that there were more pressing matters at hand. She felt the same rush when she began firing on the synthetics as she had felt on Elysium. Despite fearing for her life and that of her squadmate, there was a certain rush, a certain feeling of vitality, that could not be matched outside of battle. Aislinn did not _like _this feeling necessarily, but it lent her a preternatural clarity that she absolutely appreciated.

When the synthetics were scrap, she walked over to the soldier. The woman spoke first. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here, ma'am?"

"Are you wounded, Williams?"

"A few scrapes and burns, nothing serious. The others weren't so lucky. Oh man... We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to get off a distress call, but they cut our communications. I've been fighting for my life ever since."

"Where's the rest of your squad?"

"We tried to double back to the beacon, but we walked into an ambush. I don't think any of the others... I think I'm the only one left."

"This isn't your fault, Williams. You couldn't have done anything to save them."

"Yes, ma'am. We held our position as long as we could. Until the geth overwhelmed us."

_Geth? _Aislinn thought, _They haven't done anything since they evicted the Quarians._ Kaiden gave voice to her thoughs a second later. "The geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in nearly two hundred years. Why are they here now?"

"They must have come for the beacon. The dig site is close, just over that rise. It might still be there."

So far as Aislinn could tell, Williams was telling the truth. To have survived this long, she must have been a good soldier, and Shepard needed a new squadmate. "We could use your help, Williams." The gunny's eyes brimmed with anger and loss.

"Aye, aye, ma'am. It's time for payback."

They walked for a time, both tense and calm. Alive with adrenaline, but feeling drained and emotionally dead. Just when her adrenaline high was starting to wear off, Shepard saw the dig site. The area where the beacon was found was marked by a small Prothean ruin. They were walking down a narrow gulch strewn with boulders, an excellent approach. Aislinn directed Kaiden and Williams to take cover behind some boulders, then slowly approached the ruin. As she neared the end of the boulder field, she saw four geth troopers standing guard. She dived onto her side behind a boulder. As best she could tell, the beacon wasn't there, but she decided to kill first and ask questions later. Even if she had wanted to ask questions, geth were not known for their chattiness.

She tossed a grenade over her boulder, then sprung up and opened fire with short, controlled bursts from her Lancer. The first trooper didn't even have time to shoot at her before toppling over. The second was caught in a crossfire between Ashley and Kaiden. The third trooper was destroyed by Aislinn's hastily thrown grenade. Shepard rushed the fourth, letting her shields absorb its fire before ramming into it with her shoulder. As the automaton fell, she planted a boot where a human opponent's throat would be, and fired a three second burst into its head.

Then she turned to her soldiers. Both of them were staring at her with open-mouthed astonishment. "What?" she inquired.

"Not once have I seen someone run _towards _a geth, ma'am."

"Well," Kaiden started, "Shepard's made a career of doing the unthinkable."

Aislinn shook her head. "C'mon, you two. Let's see if the beacon's still here."

* * *

Upon entering the city, Master Chief had seen signs giving directions to various utilities and attractions._ City Park, _one read. _Bertie's Babes, Booze, And Beds,_ another proclaimed. The only one that interested Chief said _Spaceport._ If there was any resistance, they would either be trying to take or defend the spaceport.

It turned out that the spaceport was on the far side of the city. The cargo rail line he had been following curved around the city to the spaceport, but John decided to cut through. As he drove, the city got progressively worse. Trash began to fill the streets, cars sat abandoned, buildings were riddled with pock marks from bullets. The entire last block before the spaceport was leveled. Then, at the end of the block was a drop off. At the bottom was a pool of molten rock that covered most of what Chief assumed to be the spaceport. "The enemy must have dropped dozens of kilotons of ordinance in order to make the spaceport inaccessible," Cortana said. "Look, Chief, the rail station's still intact. The enemy must be using it as a forward operating base." Chief drove into the forest to the side of the road, as the road leading to the station had been reduced to slag.

"Hmph!" Cortana huffed indelicately, and John could picture her pinching the bridge of her nose. "_The Enemy._ I don't like going in dark. We don't even have a proper name for them. I sound primitive, and I don't like sounding like a monkey, Chief."

"Well, we don't know what they're called, and they _are _the enemy."

"Yes, but if we don't have proper names for things, people won't have any respect for us."

They bickered, arguing over small, unimportant things for the three whole minutes it took to circumnavigate the spaceport. They didn't argue out of spite. They argued just to talk to each other, Cortana to avoid thinking about the postponement of her death, Chief to avoid thinking about service after it. John clutched the emergency brake, drifted to a stop, and sprung out of Liam's buggy, which rocked alarmingly. He stopped a moment, off balance, then sprinted to the handrail on the edge of the platform, and vaulted over it.

Trusty MA5 in hand, he ran to a crate and leaned against its back. Then he peered out slowly, and saw the backs of two humans, one male, one female, who were firing at some kind of machines. Evidently they were the mystery enemies. Then he noticed a thin, slightly muscular woman behind a structural support kneeling down over a bomb, attempting to disarm it. John sprinted forward and tossed a grenade over their heads, sprayed a long burst at the machines, and slid on his knees into cover next to the two providing covering fire.

"Who the hell 're you?" asked the woman of the pair, in the overly loud voice of one who has been firing a gun for some time.

"Human."

As she finished disarming the bomb, the thin woman, a Commander, told him "We're not going to get to the last bomb in two minutes at the rate we've been going. There are about twenty geth over there, and we need your help if we're going to save this colony."

"Nukes, ma'am?"

"Correct."

"Alright."

Master Chief hurdled over their cover then, not bothering to wait for his companions to get ready. He sprinted from crate to crate, firing a burst or tossing a grenade each leg of his run, taking hits to his shields all the time. The three human soldiers gave him covering fire when he ran. By the time he reached the group of geth, there were only seven left.

Chief ran at them, firing on full automatic, destroying one before getting in the midst of the group. He grabbed another by its shoulder and threw it over the handrail onto the cargo rail itself. He punched another in its "throat," and pulled out a handful of cables and wires. As he wrestled a fourth for control of its gun, the other three soldiers charged in. Two geth went down to rifle fire. The last was lifted into the air, covered in a blue, smokish aura, and literally ripped in half. Chief paused for a second, then pulled the gun from the fourth machine's grasp, and used the butt of the stock to bash its head in. Meanwhile, the Commander sprinted to the last bomb and hovered feverishly over it, pressing buttons.

John tossed the unfamiliar gun to the ground, not taking his eyes off the male soldier, who, he now noticed, was surrounded by the same aura. With the other two soldiers staring at him, he walked over to her. "Is that the last one?"

"Yes. If there were more, they'd have blown by now, and we'd be dead."

"That close, ma'am?"

"Too close." She stood up. "Thanks for the help. I'm Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy. And you are?"

Chief snapped a crisp salute. "Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117, ma'am."

"Do you have a name?"

"Yes."

"But you're not going to tell me what it is... because you're part of Alliance Special Forces."

This confused John. As far as he knew, everyone knew about the Spartans. It was then that Cortana whispered in his helmet "Chief, something's wrong here. Everyone's heard of Spartans. You've been declassified for years. And I don't know what this 'alliance' is, but I've never heard anyone call the UNSC an alliance. Best to play along for now, I think. Maybe we can see what they're up to, and if they are on our side." Three seconds after Commander Shepard had spoken, John answered simply.

"Yes."

"Hmph!" She pinched the bridge of her nose, the spitting image of Cortana, then in an irritated voice, said "Alright, we still have to secure the beacon. Then you can talk to Captain Anderson about who gets to keep it. Come on."

They jogged down the rail station until they came to a balcony overlooking a platform near the edge of the landing area. John could see the road he'd rode in on. On the platform below them, crates were scattered in a half circle around a tall white obelisk shrouded in a green aura, not unlike the one that had enveloped the male soldier. _The beacon_. Standing guard around it were more mechanized soldiers.

However, John's eye was drawn to the spikes near the edge of the platform. Scattered about were four meter tall spikes on which colonists and their defenders both were impaled. Their bodies glowed a soft blue, and appeared even more ashen than most corpses. The spikes themselves were a deep blue, not unlike the armor of the invading force's ship. "Chief," Cortana said softly, "those people are dead, but there is energy moving under their skins. Like power cables inside them. Be careful."

* * *

Aislinn saw the spikes and winced internally. It was bad enough seeing the ruined bodies of the colonists, but it seemed cruel that she would have to fight them, too. It was hard to stay in soldier mode when she had to stare into the unnaturally blue eyes of those she had failed. This "Master Chief" had taken a step back when he had seen the husks. Shepard wondered if he had seen them before.

Before she could speculate more, the geth troopers saw them. She, Kaiden, and Ashley ran to the left and down the ramp to some crates, while the Master Chief vaulted over the rail. When he hit the floor, the entire platform shook. The Commander filed that away in her "think about it later" box, and spun out of cover.

The geth were focused on Master Chief. _Good; they'll never see me coming._ Aislinn fired at the closest trooper as the husks were descending from their spikes. It went down quickly, but she had to duck back into cover as its companions turned on her. Kaiden and Ashley made up for her lack of fire by coordinating their fire against the geth. Aislinn looked over at the Master Chief, crouched behind a crate. He wasn't firing, just staring staring at the husks rushing towards him. Aislinn fired a burst at one to slow it down, and the Master Chief recovered. Immediately, he opened up with that strange assault rifle he had. The husks fell, one by one. Aislinn returned her atention to the geth, only to find that Kaiden and Ashley had finished them off.

As the last husk fell, Master Chief walked over to her. In a low voice, he asked "What the hell were those?"

Standing seven feet tall and weighing more than any human had a right to, Master Chief cut an imposing figure over the Commander. _Don't let it get to you; you're in charge here._ "Your guess is as good as mine. They _were_ colonists. Now they're not."

He stared down at her for a second more, then turned to Kaiden to discuss the beacon. She tuned them out as she radioed the Normandy. "Normandy, the beacon is secure. Request immediate evac."

Joker responded quickly. "Aye, aye Commander. We're coming down now."

"Roger, Normandy. Standing by."

Aislinn turned around to speak with Kaiden and Master Chief as Ashley studied the beacon, slowly walking towards it.

"It just doesn't seem probable. What are the chances that we find a planet with no visible Prothean ruins, settle it, find a beacon, and it _works?_ It seems too good to be true." Kaiden opened his Omnitool, and tapped through a few files. "Yeah, the last time anyone found working Prothean technology was when we found Mars." Master Chief asked Kaiden a question, but it was full of technical terms, and Shepard let it go over her head.

As Kaiden enthusiastically pulled up three dimensional diagrams and enlightened the hulking warrior, Aislinn looked over at Ashley. _She's standing too close to- _Ashley got within a few feet of the beacon, and started sliding forward. She windmilled, apparently under the impression that she slipped. Then she started to step backwards, as if fighting someone who was tugging her towards the beacon. In the Commander's mind, something clicked, then she was sprinting toward her subordinate.

She wrapped her arms around Ashley and flung her away from the beacon. Unfortunately, she was now being yanked forward. As she got within arms' reach of it, she heard Ashely cry "Shepard!" Then her mind was filled with images, things she had no recollection of, but she could see as if she were there. She saw some sort of aliens fighting against machines. The machines were winning, and the organics were being destroyed. She found herself rooting for the aliens, hoping that they would somehow survive the onslaught. As she watched though, the situation grew more desperate. The aliens were fighting valiantly, then stubbornly, then desolately. Now they were writhing in pain, begging for the end. Tears streamed down her face. She felt pain for what she witnessed, but the vision itself was painful as well. She had a massive migraine, and like the defenders, she wished for the end. Then, abruptly, there were no more aliens. The machines left quickly.

She felt relief as she slumped to the ground, and she blacked out.


End file.
